Birth Rate

The Jewish population in the United States dropped from 5.5 million to 5.2 million over the past decade as birth rates remained low and intermarriage climbed slowly, according to a survey released yesterday by the United Jewish Communities. At the same time, the survey found that many Jews are widely engaged in the faith's cultural and religious life and that a large percentage participate in religious education programs. The survey, which organizers called the largest of its kind, was administered to about 4,500 Jewish respondents in 2000 and 2001.

We baby boomers get blamed for just about every economic hiccup, because there are so many of us. And our children are particularly furious because they believe the crisis in Social Security, which may affect their ability to retire, can be laid at our feet like kindling for a burning at the stake. They are convinced we boomers, with our outsized appetites and sense of entitlement, are going to consume everything on our way to the cemetery, right down to the amount of ground we leave for those who die after us. But data from the Social Security Administration itself, provided by chief actuary Stephen Goss, demonstrates that boomers are not the pig-through-the-python that we have been described as being.

KYOKUSHI, Japan -- It is not that the young women strolling the meandering alleys of this sun-dappled farming village in southern Japan are lazy or dishonest or impolite. No, the problem, at least as old folks and local officials see it, is just that they have almost stopped having babies.The latest statistics, released recently, show that Japan's birth rate hit a new low last year, and a government projection now suggests that the population will fall by more than half over the next century.

We are pretty sure of our stereotypes in this country, and we hold them close. One of them is that teen pregnancy is an inner-city problem, a poor problem, a black problem. Another is that "rural" equals "farm," and life there is wholesome and God-fearing. Like so many of the things we believe to be true, these aren't. Not exactly. New research from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy reveals that the teen birth rate is a third higher in rural counties than in other areas of the country, regardless of age, race or ethnicity.

MOSCOW - The city of Voronezh has decided to turn a maternity hospital into a prison for young offenders in a bleak reminder of trends in Russia. "We need more prisons and fewer maternity hospitals," says Yekaterina Kakorina, director of health monitoring at the Institute of Social Hygiene in Moscow. "The birth rate is dropping and the rate of crime is steadily going up. It's symbolic of the socioeconomic situation in this country." Politicians and population experts say Russia is facing a demographic catastrophe as a low birth rate and a high death rate sap the population, accounting for a natural-cause loss in population of 5.9 million since 1992.

Maryland's teen birth rate has dropped for the sixth straight year and is nearly 20 percent lower than in 1991, according to figures to be released today by the governor's office.The statistics will show that 4.39 percent of Maryland girls between ages 15 and 19 gave birth in 1997, the last year for which figures were available. The figure was 5.41 percent in 1991.Maryland's rate continues to be less than the national average of 5.23 percent.Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend praised the state's efforts to fight teen pregnancy, saying the decline "clearly shows our message is getting through."

Americans may never agree on the abortion issue. But one thing remains clear: Fewer women are having them, a trend that has persisted through Democratic and Republican administrations, divisive election campaigns and the underlying culture wars. A report this month from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows the trend in stark numbers: Between 1990 and 2004, the estimated abortion rate declined by 24 percent. In no single year did the rate even inch upward. "It's been dropping since the late '80s, especially for teenagers but for all age groups too," said Stephanie J. Ventura, head of the reproductive statistics branch at the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.

OIMYAKON, Russia - A few years ago, a retired math teacher named Tamara I. Vasileva began poring through diaries and records of births and deaths in this Siberian village of 950 people. As the community's unofficial archivist, she studied the records of about 20 of the town's oldest families, dating back to the 1920s, and she noted something odd. Until roughly the 1960s, the records documented the lives of people who lived well into their 70s and 80s - one or two even into their hundreds.

We baby boomers get blamed for just about every economic hiccup, because there are so many of us. And our children are particularly furious because they believe the crisis in Social Security, which may affect their ability to retire, can be laid at our feet like kindling for a burning at the stake. They are convinced we boomers, with our outsized appetites and sense of entitlement, are going to consume everything on our way to the cemetery, right down to the amount of ground we leave for those who die after us. But data from the Social Security Administration itself, provided by chief actuary Stephen Goss, demonstrates that boomers are not the pig-through-the-python that we have been described as being.

When it comes to changing diapers, breastfeeding and swaddling, 40 is the new 30. A recent national report found birth rates falling in virtually every age group of women in their childbearing years — except for those between 40 and 50. The group aged 40 to 44 had its largest birth rate since 1967. Benefiting from improvements in reproductive technology and the fact that most Americans are living longer, more women 40 and over are choosing to have children in later life, particularly after they've accomplished career goals.

Pudgy, pink Gerber babies are no longer the typical children being born in the United States. According to theU.S. Census Bureau, moms who are Latino, Asian, African American or mixed race are now giving birth to just over 50 percent of American babies. Though the median age of Americans of European heritage is 42, the median age of Latinos is 28. The median for Asians and blacks falls somewhere around 33. You do not need a biologist or sociologist to tell you younger people make more babies, so this historic trend toward an increasingly multiracial nation will continue.

When it comes to changing diapers, breastfeeding and swaddling, 40 is the new 30. A recent national report found birth rates falling in virtually every age group of women in their childbearing years — except for those between 40 and 50. The group aged 40 to 44 had its largest birth rate since 1967. Benefiting from improvements in reproductive technology and the fact that most Americans are living longer, more women 40 and over are choosing to have children in later life, particularly after they've accomplished career goals.

Americans may never agree on the abortion issue. But one thing remains clear: Fewer women are having them, a trend that has persisted through Democratic and Republican administrations, divisive election campaigns and the underlying culture wars. A report this month from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows the trend in stark numbers: Between 1990 and 2004, the estimated abortion rate declined by 24 percent. In no single year did the rate even inch upward. "It's been dropping since the late '80s, especially for teenagers but for all age groups too," said Stephanie J. Ventura, head of the reproductive statistics branch at the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.

President Bush has proudly increased the funding for abstinence-only sex education programs since taking office. He is pushing Congress for an additional $28 million for 2008 to add to the $175 million spent last year. Now comes the news that for the first time in 14 years, the birth rate for American teenagers increased last year. A coincidence? Only those who still believe in the stork think so. The Bush administration should bear the blame for the inevitable consequences of the 3 percent increase in the teen birth rate: a growing number of teen moms who will not finish high school and who will likely end up on welfare.

WILLIAMSPORT -- Janis Churchey sat at her high school desk, tired and queasy and unable to focus on her teacher. She leaned forward, her expression solemn, to whisper a secret to her girlfriend. She was pregnant. Kelly Taylor, 15 and feeling alone with her own deep worries, was surprised. She was also suddenly relieved. "I might be, too," she confided. At that moment in February 2005, both girls recently recalled, they were in a 10th-grade Life Skills class learning about the disadvantages of having children too young.

MOSCOW -- Twenty-four-year-old Yevgenia Chaika has tired eyes - a sign of things to come - but a conspicuous contentment over her newest role in life, one she has imagined since she was a girl. She just became a mother. And though she hasn't yet named her 7-pound-11-ounce son, born a day earlier in the obstetrics department of the Moscow Medical Academy, she is already contemplating the next addition to her family. "I think it's boring to just live for yourself," says Chaika, standing outside the hospital's newborn ward in a loose-fitting nightgown and slippers, envisioning a family of five.

THE STATISTICS often used to describe Baltimore convey an image of a dangerous, drug-addicted city. There's the murder rate, which, for better or worse, has become a barometer of the state of the city. Then there's the number of heroin addicts in town, estimated to be about 45,000, with an additional 15,000 hooked on some other drug. Births to teenage mothers used to be another one of those headline-grabbing statistics that conveyed Baltimore's decline. In the mid-1980s, the prevalence of teenagers who became mothers was one for the record books.

President Bush has proudly increased the funding for abstinence-only sex education programs since taking office. He is pushing Congress for an additional $28 million for 2008 to add to the $175 million spent last year. Now comes the news that for the first time in 14 years, the birth rate for American teenagers increased last year. A coincidence? Only those who still believe in the stork think so. The Bush administration should bear the blame for the inevitable consequences of the 3 percent increase in the teen birth rate: a growing number of teen moms who will not finish high school and who will likely end up on welfare.

Maryland has made progress in lowering the teen birth rate and reducing the number of children living in poverty, but it is still struggling with high teen death and infant mortality rates, according to an annual report released today by the Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation. Although the state posted improved scores in five of 10 survey areas, including decreases in child death and high school dropout rates, it slipped in ranking from 19th among all states in 2005 to 23rd this year.

OIMYAKON, Russia - A few years ago, a retired math teacher named Tamara I. Vasileva began poring through diaries and records of births and deaths in this Siberian village of 950 people. As the community's unofficial archivist, she studied the records of about 20 of the town's oldest families, dating back to the 1920s, and she noted something odd. Until roughly the 1960s, the records documented the lives of people who lived well into their 70s and 80s - one or two even into their hundreds.